Speak up now to help adjunct professors at community colleges

Published today (3/25) in the Ft. Collins Coloradoan

HB 14-1154: Latest news

Note:  This link appears as the topmost item on our FRCC AAUP Chapter home page, but since we have thousands of blog followers now, we thought it best to post it here as well:

HB 14-1154 Latest news and bill history

Anyone who has studied Lincoln's second inaugural address will recall this passage: "With malice toward none, with charity for all ... let us strive on to finish the work we are in." 

We are still knee-deep in the work of this bill, none so more now that Rep. Randy Fischer and Sen. John Kefalas. The bill heads soon to the Appropriations Committee. Please send them notes of support (see links below). 

Reach out to contingent colleagues and recognize them personally for their work as college teachers, even while they earn poverty wages. Scores of them are depressed, feel they have failed, and so are leaving teaching forever. 

Hold compassion for those who fail to see this loss, and who are unreasonably threatened to see justice legislated and a new day dawn.

Imagine what healing will look like and feel like, how it will benefit our students, and how very strong our beloved community colleges will become from it.
                                                                                                                          - Caprice 
Here are links to our bill sponsors so you can quickly send each a note:

Rep. Randy Fischer
Sen. John Kefalas

Two editorials this weekend by AAUP brass, supporting HB 14-1154: The Community College Pay and Benefits Equity Act of 2014

by Stephen Mumme, AAUP Colo. Conf. Co-President, from the Ft. Collins Coloradoan:
Some community college faculty have been swept under the rug

by Don Eron, AAUP Colo. Conf. Exec. Committee and National AAUP Committee A, from the Boulder Camera:
Equity bill can fix community college system

AAUP recruits faculty across Colorado’s community colleges

                 As part of an organizational renaissance, the Colorado Conference of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) early in 2014 began reaching out to part- and full-time faculty teaching throughout Colorado’s Community College System.  Suzanne Hudson of the AAUP Colo. Conf. Exec. Committee, and Caprice Lawless, FRCC AAUP Chapter President, toured southern Colorado before the spring semester began, visiting with faculty at Otero Junior College in La Junta, Lamar Community College in Lamar and Trinidad State Junior College in Trinidad.  Larry Eson, an adjunct professor on the Westminster campus of Front Range Community College, helped staff the membership table during the in-service held for Community College of Denver faculty before the spring semester began.  At the FRCC Westminster campus in-service in late January, Hudson, along with Don Eron, also of the AAUP Colo. Conf. Exec. Committee, staffed the membership table throughout the faculty in-service on that campus.

                In February, Hudson, along with Don Eron (also of the AAUP Colo. Conf. Executive Committee) were invited to speak at the faculty senate meeting of Community College of Denver.

                The purpose of the visits is to recruit new members and to encourage renewals of long-time, supporting faculty. The Colorado Conference of the august and highly respected organization, long a champion of higher education principles of equity, shared governance, and academic freedom, is redoubling its recruiting throughout the state.

                “Like all professional organizations, of course, we use social media, print and mobile communications,” explained Hudson, Secretary-Treasurer and spokesperson for the outreach campaign.  “However, we are finding it increasingly helpful to meet faculty informally on their campuses to answer questions, provide resources, and to determine how best we can serve them.”

                “What we’re interested in is strengthening  the bonds between faculty at the urban campuses and those working in the rural campuses,” added Lawless.  “It makes sense to build ties among communities within the community college system,” she added.

 

Suzanne Hudson and Caprice Lawless, AAUP membership table, Lamar Community College, in Lamar, Colo., January 13, 2014.

Exec. Committee members met many interested faculty members during their visit t0 Otero Junior College in La Junta, Colo.

Larry Eson, of the FRCC AAUP chapter, at St. Cajetan’s Event Center for the Community College of Denver faculty in-service, on January 15, 2014.

Staff at Trinidad State Junior College in Trinidad, Colo. welcomed AAUP members.

 

AAUP chocolates were a big hit with faculty and students who stopped by the membership tables.

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Ten Reprimandments

1.       Thou shalt not consider any authority above college administrators, not even the U.S. Constitution or a century of labor legislation.

2.       Thou shalt not take the name professor or consider thyself faculty; to do so is in vain.

3.       Thou shalt not remember to rest any day, but to plan lessons and grade papers without ceasing.

4.       Thou shalt not kill the ways we exploit thy labor.

5.       Thou shalt not steal any time to have a life.

6.       Thou shalt not envy thy regular faculty’s living wage; poverty and food banks for thee.

7.       Thou shalt not covet thy custodian’s health-care plan; thou must stand in line with indigents at free clinics should thou become ill.

8.       Thou shalt honor thy administrators who do not honor thee.

9.       Thou shalt not commit democracy.

10.    Thou shalt not bear false witness against administrators even as they do so against thee.